To provide an AC welding operation, in particular for AC MIG welding, it has been suggested to use an output coupling transformer for the output stage of a transistor switching network type inverter with a secondary winding on the output transformer to create a generally positive terminal and a generally negative terminal. By using an inductor and two transistor based switches, such as IGBTs, a positive current pulse can be directed through the welding operation followed by a negative current pulse. The positive current pulse is created by closing a first switch coupling the positive terminal at the output of the inverter through the electrode and workpiece to the negative or grounded terminal. To reverse the current flow and cause a negative current pulse, the welding operation is connected to the negative terminal at the output of the inverter by a second transistor based switch. Each transistor based switch is in series with the electrode and workpiece together with a portion of a current sustaining inductor. By alternately closing the first switch when the second switch is opened and opening the first switch when the second switch is closed, an AC welding process is created. This process includes a succession of positive and negative current pulses. This architecture for creating an AC welding process has proven quite successful; however, when the welding current is high, i.e. over about 200 amperes, the snubbers in parallel with the first and second transistor based switches are very expensive and quite large. These snubbers had to maintain a high voltage across the switches when one pulse was turned off and the next pulse was turned on. Such inverter power supplies for high welding currents have been successful in AC arc welding so long as the high voltages during the switching operation from one polarity to the opposite polarity was adequately handled. This was a distinct disadvantage of using the inverter based power supply for high welding currents.